From Concept to Acquisition in 45 Days
The Opportunity
Runify is a ranked running app designed to compete with established players like Strava and Apple Workouts. The concept: gamify fitness by turning every run into XP, every week into a competitive climb, and every milestone into a shareable achievement. Users track their runs, compete with friends, climb through rank tiers (Bronze → Silver → Gold → Platinum → Diamond → Iridescent), and analyze their progress over time.
The founder had a clear vision and a tight window. Traditional dev shops quoted six months for an MVP—a timeline that meant missing the summer running season, burning cash, and risking competitors shipping first. In consumer apps, timing isn't just important—it's existential. Ship too late and the opportunity evaporates.
The Challenge
Build and ship a polished, feature-complete running app in a fraction of the normal timeline—without sacrificing quality or user experience.
The Approach: AI-Powered Overnight Development
We implemented AI systems that wrote code, built APIs, and made updates automatically—overnight, while the core engineering team was sleeping. This wasn't about replacing developers; it was about giving them a force multiplier. The team would review progress in the morning, provide direction, and then let the AI systems continue building while they focused on high-level architecture, design decisions, and QA.
The result: what would have taken six months took two weeks. Not a prototype—a production-ready app published to the App Store.
Here's what shipped in the first version:
Real-time GPS run tracking with accurate distance, pace, and elevation
XP progression system tied to distance and consistency
Competitive rank system with 6 tiers (Bronze → Iridescent)
Friends leaderboards and global leaderboards
Streak tracking to encourage daily consistency
Post-run visual templates for social sharing (Instagram, Twitter, etc.)
Performance analytics and progress tracking
These weren't bare-bones features thrown together to hit a deadline. They were polished, production-ready, and designed with the user experience in mind. The app launched on the App Store two weeks after kickoff.
The Outcome
Users loved it. Reviews praised the ranking system and gamification: "keeps me encouraged," "absolutely goated app," "best running app." The product found its audience immediately. Traction was strong. Retention was solid. The execution quality made it clear this wasn't a side project—it was a legitimate competitor in the space.
45 Days After Launch
Acquired for six figures
A buyer saw the traction, the execution quality, and the market timing—and made an offer the founder accepted. From concept to acquisition in under two months. (We can't disclose the exact figure, but it was a successful exit by any measure.)
Why This Worked
Speed-to-market matters. In consumer apps, the window of opportunity is narrow. Six months gives competitors time to copy your idea, saturate the market, or shift user expectations. Two weeks doesn't. By the time anyone else could react, Runify was already live, gaining users, and iterating based on real feedback.
We didn't cut corners. We used AI to eliminate the repetitive, time-consuming work that normally inflates timelines: boilerplate code, API scaffolding, integration work, routine testing. The team focused on architecture, design, and user experience—the things that actually differentiate a product. The result was a polished app that felt like it took six months to build, because the quality was there. It just didn't take six months.
From 6 months to 2 weeks. From concept to App Store to acquisition in 45 days. This is what happens when you build at the speed of opportunity.
Have a product idea that needs to ship yesterday?
We specialize in fast-tracking MVPs with AI-assisted development—getting you to market before the opportunity passes.